Book Image

Raspberry Pi Zero Cookbook

Book Image

Raspberry Pi Zero Cookbook

Overview of this book

The Raspberry Pi Zero, one of the most inexpensive, fully-functional computers available, is a powerful and revolutionary product developed by the Raspberry Pi Foundation. The Raspberry Pi Zero opens up a new world for the makers out there. This book will give you expertise with the Raspberry Pi Zero, providing all the necessary recipes that will get you up and running. In this book, you will learn how to prepare your own circuits rather than buying the expensive add–ons available in the market. We start by showing you how to set up and manage the Pi Zero and then move on to configuring the hardware, running it with Linux, and programming it with Python scripts. Later, we integrate the Raspberry Pi Zero with sensors, motors, and other hardware. You will also get hands-on with interesting projects in media centers, IoT, and more.
Table of Contents (17 chapters)
Raspberry Pi Zero Cookbook
Credits
About the Author
About the Reviewer
www.PacktPub.com
Customer Feedback
Preface

Using crontab to run a script automatically at predefined intervals


For the last recipe in this chapter, we will look at the popular crontab utility, a service that will execute a command or script at a regular interval of your choosing. It is a vital part of the system administrator's toolbox, and one you'll find a lot of uses for, especially when connecting to sensors and Internet of Things devices.

Getting ready

If you followed the recipe to make the Raspberry Pi Zero temperature script, you are ready to go.

How to do it...

Let's start logging the temperature of the Zero to a text file. We will take a reading every minute and save it in the /var/log/rpz_temp.log file. Over the course of a day, especially on days when you are using the Pi a lot, or it is warmer or cooler where your Pi is located, you should see changes in temperature. The crontab utility is built into pretty much every Linux system, and you don't have to worry about installation for Raspbian. Generally, if you are working...